HOHs One-Minute Recess: Frank Moments

During her weekly press conference today, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) treated reporters to one of her favorite Barney Frank moments.

“It may not be [about] historic public policy in nature, but I think it’s one you might appreciate,” she began her story about the Democratic Massachusetts Representative. At the time, Pelosi was relatively new and went to speak about the State and foreign operations appropriations bill on the floor.

“I come to the floor. I have on a suit I hadn’t worn [before]. And, [let me] remind you, [ex-Rep.] David Obey [D-Wis.] had been the chairman of that [sub]committee for, like, 13 years. He knew every semicolon, dot, everything in the bill. … It’s his baby, he thinks of it as his baby.

“So I go to the floor, and the first person I went to is Barney Frank,” she continued. “Barney Frank, [and] he says: ‘That suit, give it away.’”

“I go and I accomplish what I was set out to do. I was so proud,” Pelosi remembered. “David was sitting there the way David sits there, and David says to me, ‘You did what you came to do. You got the job done. But you could have been more diplomatic.’”